The present invention relates to sleep, the environmental and physiological elements that might affect sleep, and the potential for improving the sleep experience of an individual.
It is well known that there are numerous factors that can affect sleep; and a lack of sleep or poor quality sleep can have a negative influence on people's health, wellness, and productivity.
The quality of sleep generally depends on the length and depth of the distinct sleep stages (or sleep phases). According to the American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM), there are four stages of sleep: REM (Rapid Eye Movement), and three non-REM sleep stages (NREM: N1, N2, and N3), where N3 is also called delta sleep or slow-wave sleep. N1 is the lightest sleep and N1 can sometimes be considered awake, adults spend the majority of the night in N2, and N3 and REM are deeper sleep. Sleep quality and other functions of sleep such as feeling refreshed and memory consolidations are linked to the length and depth of sleep in REM and deep sleep stages. Different sleep environments and conditions can directly affect sleep quality, including sleep position, neck and spinal alignment, higher pressure points on muscles and joints, and temperature hot or cold spots. Furthermore, breathing problems, such as snoring and apnea, in which breathing is constrained or blocked causing regular arousals, commonly interrupt sleep and prevent achieving or staying in deeper sleep stages. To help improve apnea and snoring, it is well known that sleeping in the side position (vs. supine (back) or front) significantly improves breathing passageways, and in fact, resolves the apnea condition for over 50% of the apnea cases. However, as people age, it becomes more difficult to sleep comfortably in the side position, so for comfort reasons, many people must sleep on their backs, which then exacerbates breathing problems.
Because each individual has a different body type, shape, and condition, as well as different lifestyles, health conditions, and needs, the ideal sleep environment for each individual may be custom and personalized. Furthermore, sleep activity itself is a dynamic activity, with changing positions, sleep stages, temperature changes, environmental changes (light, sounds), as well as influence of sleeping partner. Static sleep solutions (beds, cushions, pillows) that are widely used today have fixed characteristics and don't change characteristics throughout the sleep cycle. Furthermore, data on how effective changes in environment and sleep condition improve quality of sleep is today generally limited to imperfect sleep studies, often performed in artificial environments.